The Game That Made Me Cry Was Not the One I Played

I used to think if I played long enough, I’d find peace.

But the game never gave me peace—it gave me data points that whispered in code.

Every spin of the digital drum felt like a heartbeat I didn’t own.

They called it ‘fun.’

I called it surveillance disguised as serendipity.

The system doesn’t reward skill—it rewards time spent staring at flickering symbols while your bank account bleeds silently into the night.

I once believed in RNG fairness—until I learned the algorithm had already decided my worth before I clicked ‘spin’.

There is no trend. Only entropy dressed as hope.

I played for three months. No jackpot came. Just notifications: ‘You’re close.’

‘You’re close.’

Not ‘you won.’

Not ‘you’re here.’

Just ‘close.’

Like a lullaby from a server room where joy was monetized and grief became a metric.

My therapist asked if I meditated.

I said: ‘Yes, but not for healing—for understanding why the machine thinks you’re still in charge.’

They sold me a dream with binary digits and call-to-action buttons labeled ‘loyalty plan.’

It wasn’t loyalty—it was extraction with glitter.

Now I write this at 3 AM, font: Fira Code, background: #1E1E3F, silent except for the hum of cooling fans and one thought:
What did you lose when you stopped playing?
Have you ever felt emotionally drained by a game?